Scales of War

The Way of the Bat: Justice Tempered in Darkness – Chapter 2 (EXCERPTS)

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The Shadowfell is a strange place. It is at once familiar, and also completely alien to those of us from the Material Plane. Its features are not that dissimilar from those we are familiar with, there is a sky inhabited with a sun, we walk on solid ground inhabited with sparse plant life. There are roads and hills and clouds. Yet, there is a stark paleness to it all; a lack of color and warmth. The cool darkness is pervasive; even the sun’s light cannot break through the pall of shadow that suffuses every aspect of this realm.

We trekked through the eerily foreboding landscape for quite some time before finally arriving at a massive camp surrounding a foundry, and some smaller buildings. In the distance, a large mountain was split in half, with lava flowing like a river through the camp and under the large foundry. As we watched the camp there was a shift change among the workers. I’ve never seen so many move in such a coordinated, rehearsed effort before. Tents were packed and the thousands gathered left the area, but were soon replaced with thousands more.

We were able to convince the guards that we were looking to work as mercenaries for the leader of the operation. Once we entered the makeshift tent-city that had come to life before us, we split-up to gather some intelligence. I was able to shadow some individuals who appeared to be supervising others, and snatched from their pockets orders, or plans, detailing parts of the operation. Putting it all together, there is a massive effort underway. They create thousands of weapons and armor and move it to several different points, in multiple realms. The level of this operation is almost beyond my comprehension. I never expected such evil beings to be capable of working together to create this kind of massive effort.

As the others continued to gather intelligence by speaking with people in the camp, I scouted out the larger foundry. The main entrance was heavily guarded. I watched as they moved several carts in and out of the building. I kept seeing containers of some vile-looking liquid that they were transporting. In an attempt to find another way in, I walked around towards the back and scaled the wall to the top of the building. I was searching for any means of ingress I could find when I saw down below, at the back of the building, a couple of individuals leaving through a secret entrance. After they were out of sight I slipped down and made a note of where the hidden door was before rushing off to tell the others.

With the rest of the group assembled, we made our way into the building through the hidden door and found a large open room where they were using the noxious looking liquid and bathing creatures in it. The creatures were being transformed by this compound. We have slain all those that were operating the equipment in this first room, as well as taken down a large beast that they had transformed using the liquid.

We are now catching our breath before we continue onward in an attempt to understand what is happening here, and put an end to it.